1809 Bavaria scenario

[Caranorn]

Hi,

I was wondering whether anyone has defeated Austria yet in the 1809 Bavarian scenario? So far I have managed to soundly trash the Austrian army, but even in my best game of that scenario I have not gained more then +2 VP (which gives an undecided campaign). I expect this is due to my inability to exploit the military victory (300 points of casualties plus some 20 surrenders to teh Austrians and 100 casalties and 3-4 surrender to the french (Massena unfortunatelly misunderstood one of my orders and got mauled when his supporting corps withred to regroup) by advancing beyond the bavarian borders (in that latest game I had gained Braunau but lost one of the bavarian border towns, so I expect an exact trade of VPs).

Otherwise a fun game to play;-)

Marc aka Caran...

P.S.: I managed a resounding Austrian victory in that scenario easily, so maybe it is just slightly scewed towards the Austro-Russians.

[EricLarsen]

Caranorn,
In playing the original Danube release I was always able to trash the Austrians easily in 1809 and win decisive victories. In fact I had problems having the Austrian AI last a whole campaign game. The scoring system takes a while to master as you need to capture towns and win battles to get the scoring machine working in your favor.
Eric

[Caranorn]

Yep Eric, I noticed that last night. I decided to once again play a different scenario (as getting fixed on the same situation is not all that helpful). So in last night's game I soundly trashed Mack in the 1805 historic scenario. Other then whiping out the Austrian army (1 cuirassier unit remained in the Ulm area and a lone line division had wandered unoticed behind my lines in the north east, all other Austrians had surrendered) I also occupied all of Bavaria (except 3 or 4 towns due to that wandering line division;-) and started to march into Austria. The VPs for that game were correspondingly high.

So it's indeed the combination of taking towns and incapacitating the enemy army that matters. Now I will have to apply that to the 1809 bavarian scenario (I think I concentrated my forces too much to deliver a crippling blow to the Austrian armies (first against Bohemia, then the main force, which left me no time to exploit the battlefield victories).

Marc aka Caran...

[EricLarsen]

Caranorn,
The scoring machine is a bit different in Danube and I'm not sure if Frank updated the manual to really accurately describe how it works. While it's obvious that capturing towns and winning battles scores points, it isn't your typical get a point when you capture a town or win a battle. It's a matter of the point differential between two sides each turn so each side gets points for the towns it holds each turn and the side with the advantage is the side that actually scores. But it's not a straight point for point schedule per turn as those points are divided by 3 and only if a side has a whole point advantage will it score a point that turn. Same with battles, if you get on the winning track early and maintain getting victories then the scoring machine will start giving you VP's every turn for being successful in battles in the past. Even on turns when nothing happens the scoring machine is still working so it is important to get that puppy on your side and then keep it on your side as long as possible.
Eric